Bratag | # 31 | 2010-01-26, 14:11 | Report

I see no apple fanboyism here and have nothing but appreciation for the work being done. I really think Nokia need to pull out their finger and give us something better than Ovi store. I was hoping the "BIG" announcement might be the announcement of a decent store, but alas it was not to be.

Flandry | # 32 | 2010-01-26, 14:15 | Report

No, only people who care to game on their phone. It would be an irrelevant drain of resources from everyone else's perspective.

While i think this would be great to have on N900, i have no desire for Nokia to "sponsor" it. It's a commercial venture. We have plenty of noncommercial projects more worthy of sponsorship.

Now, what Nokia does need to do is get their act in gear on their end of the Maemo platform. Specifically, Ovi.

And please read the thread before posting in it. I'll delete any more comments that drag us back to the first page because the posters didn't.

attila77 | # 33 | 2010-01-26, 14:17 | Report

It's the TYPE of the game which determines whether an iPhone style display is better or a N900 one. For example, RTS games or adventures would fare far better on the N900 because the higher resolution and precision is more important than responsiveness for those genres.

Otherwise, they are just concluding that games written specifically with iPhone hardware in mind works (surprise) better on the iPhone, which is not exactly a difficult conclusion to reach

gerbick | # 34 | 2010-01-26, 14:19 | Report

And that's not a problem in itself? I mean... the N900 has been coming for a long time and they cannot sort out OVI yet?

Perhaps I'm the daft one here; however that makes zero damn sense to release a phone in this day and age and basically shut out folks by not showing either incentive(s) and/or ability to facilitate companies, individuals while leveraging the community. Releasing a phone without a store, et al was okay perhaps 2-3 years ago. Not now.

There has to be a better way. This isn't cutting it - not at this moment. And then to have people issue out remarks because the person is using an Apple Mac to develop in Ubuntu via VirtualBox and question his ability!? What kind of message does that send as well?

Accountability. It's lacking.

gerbick | # 35 | 2010-01-26, 14:29 | Report

As compared to what? Nokia's big enough to facilitate this too. If resources are that thin, then that spells a lot of trouble for the platform because what's been concentrated on thus far is rather niche as it stands.

Games, other productivity, upgrades in functionality... those are important on each and every platform but Maemo if you were to quickly skim over the threads here at TMO. It seems like emulation of decade+ older games - Quake III (released 1999), Warcraft II (released 1995), Starcraft (released 1998), Super Nintendo emulation (released 1991), Windows 3.11 (released initially 1991).

Seriously, it's 2010. What exactly is important to Nokia now? Expanding the platform... or emulating stuff from 20 years ago? And why does that demand more of a focus than allowing established game engines on N900?

Seriously... what is important? What's being focused on? I ask not out of anger, but out of curiosity.

Speak for yourself. No desire for MMS, no desire for that, no desire for something like this - which would bring more eyes to the N900... the short-sightedness is epic.

100% Agree. But what kills me... this is what's being asked. Let in some corps, give some incentive... and they'll come. Otherwise... Nokia will have to pay more later when they truly don't want to come to the platform.

At this rate, it seems like the emulation scene is what is concentrated upon, nothing much more than that. And if you oppose that, then you're quickly labeled and shunned.

attila77 | # 36 | 2010-01-26, 15:01 | Report

It's a (pretty big) problem all right, but it has no bearing on the OP's dilemma (whether Ovi will support native apps or not).

Keep in mind two things.
a) the two biggest stores went live 18 and 15 months (!) ago.
b) Maemo 5 is not well suited for a store style distribution, it has no DRM, all in all, it will only get a store because of all the whining of minds soaked in the less than two year old store-hype. In reality, it's simply not made for such an ecosystem (and no, that's not a 'fail'). Maemo 6 will be better (at least much as 'me too' can be interpreted as better) at this, albeit it's yet unclear at what cost (i.e. how difficult it will be to switch between locked and Free mode).

gerbick | # 37 | 2010-01-26, 15:13 | Report

The OP dilemma still exists. There's no way to sell apps. Angry Birds got support. Why can't somebody that's behind the engine of 400+ apps?

I know there's no DRM, but that didn't exactly stop WayFinder from finding a way to sell their app. It's not a perfect setup, some people bypassed it; however that's one possibility.

And all of this should have still been worked out before the release, imho.

attila77 | # 38 | 2010-01-26, 15:41 | Report

But this is where you go wrong ! Unlike the Apple variant, the Ovi store is not the ONLY way of distributing apps and facilitating payment ! You could shove an app into the non-free section of Extras and handle payments via Paypal/Moneybookers/whatever today. That's why I say people developed tunnel vision with regard to app distribution on mobile platforms.

Angry Birds is a special story. Nokia already had a deal with Rovio, hence Angry Birds.

Exactly, see above, you don't need Ovi to do what WayFinder did.

Obviously. But Ovi is a separate divison and apparently well over their heads in the whole distribution thing even before Maemo, which just aggravated issues.

gerbick | # 39 | 2010-01-26, 15:47 | Report

The developer in question had already paid their Ovi fees; that's why I'm concentrating on that as a complaint. Otherwise, there are a multitude of vectors to get your app out there and purchased.

However, I'm sticking with the problem as it was previously described. Ovi needs to support N900 apps. And this has absolutely zero/nada/zilch/nothing to do with how Apple works.

Then make more deals. It's that simple.

Let's just clear the record... I already know about alternative methods to get your apps out there. I'm trying to stay in the lane of the developer who's apparently paid the Ovi fee.

But I get your gist...

Classic case of left hand not knowing what the right hand does. Sorta makes PR1.1 with the Ovi Beta store update a bit less... impressive around that area.

Flandry | # 40 | 2010-01-26, 17:16 | Report

The original quote was "Everyone would benefit in Nokia sponsoring/buying/supporting a port of SIO2 to Maemo." That's clearly not true. Resources are always limited, and how they are allocated is relevant. Since you asked, more productive uses for the resources would be to extend and complete core functionality and bring Ovi Maps to feature parity with Symbian, to name a couple.

You're confusing Nokia and maemo, and it seems to be the origin of a lot of your complaints being expressed here. Just because i have ported some old games and an emulator to Maemo doesn't mean that's what Nokia is focused on. Nokia didn't sponsor the games in Extras.

I would be interested in hearing that, but that's probably a question for the Nokia forum.

Heh. I do speak for myself, which i said.

Since we're all speaking for ourselves, i was just wondering: what have you, in your far-sightedness, done for Maemo recently?

Remember, this is maemo.org, the community for promoting and developing for Maemo. Opinions are great but don't compile very well.

Yeah, we're all agreed Nokia needs to get on the ball with Ovi. Just keep in mind that nobody here has any say in that. This is not a Nokia forum.

I don't see why anyone has any cause to oppose emulation. One of the great things about powerful computers is that they acquire the functionality of lesser systems by emulating them. E.g. the Palm Garnet emulator, which many are using so they can keep using their favorite apps from the Palm era. It would be illogical to not take advantage of the best software for any platform that can be successfully emulated. The N900 is actually powerful enough to do that for a large number of systems, hence the ubiquity of emulators.